Page 63 of Venomous Lust
“Hurts.” Her voice was like a thread that broke at the end of that single word, but she managed to push the sound out. “Burns.”
Another figure appeared at the edge of her vision. A strangely featureless face with a lipless mouth and yellow eyes stared down at her.
Muharee.
“I am Relial, healer of the Kerlu tribe.” Yellow eyes ran over her body in cold, professional assessment. “You are a lucky female to survive such a wound. ”
“Healer?” Hazel blinked, then memories flooded her mind. Knut and his Ilarian guards. The carnivorous stalks with their white roots salivating acid like rabid dogs. The ionic detonation. The wound that wouldn’t stop bleeding. The Muharee, coming out of the forest like green ghosts. So much fear, so much pain.
And there was more to come.
As the darkness retreated, Hazel became more aware of her surroundings. She was lying on a mattress made of a strange material which molded to her form like foam, warm and soft, but also subtly humid.No, she reflected as her palm flattened against the mattress,not humid.
Living.
It was just like the fabric that shielded the Muharee from the wrath of their Mother Forest, but in a pale gray color.
The Medina is everywhere on Muhar.Those were Yalko’s words. She began to understand what he meant. The Medina wasn’t just some terrible predator to the Muharee, but also a life giver, nourishing them and giving them shelter.
Her thoughts on the Medina were cut short as Relial’s reptilian face bent over her body, his yellow eyes showing no emotion. His hands ran over her limbs, then went to her head to remove a sticky, milky white patch just above her ear. Hazel stared as Relial put the white patch away almost reverently, then pressed another in its place.
Pain erupted, burning and stinging, vivid.
“It hurts,” Hazel complained, her voice small, defeated.
“The Mother’s milk is like a fire,” Relial explained, his strange voice like broken glass, grating. “But after a fire, life can begin anew, and so it heals even as it consumes.”
That was all the explanation she was going to get. Relial turned his attention back to her body, and Hazel followed his gaze. She lay on the strange living mattress, bare except for a thin layer of roughly hewn, brown panties and a primitive bra. She should be embarrassed, shocked to be exposed this way, but she was far too scared.
Fear coursed through her as she watched the Muharee healer remove a layer of the same fabric from around her thigh to reveal a large gash in her flesh. The ionic detonation really had done a number on her. Her wound was a shocking red, raw flesh exposed, three inches wide and six inches long.
Deft fingers covered in tiny brown scales inspected her wound, then the healer nodded to himself before looking up at Khal.
“The infection is gone. Another day of the Mother’s milk, and she will be able to walk.”
Khal nodded, his relief obvious, but he turned a pained expression to her. Fear embraced her like a lover as she understood that Relial meant to wrap her wound in the same material that was waging such burning, stinging pain on the smaller cut above her ear.
As she still locked gazes with Khal, another Muharee moved to his side. She instantly recognized the quiet features, those bright yellow eyes.
Yalko.
The Muharee chieftain wore the same all-green clothing she’d seen him wear before, the same all Muharee seemed to wear, but his was subtly different. Veins of gold ran through the living material, wrapping around his chest and running up his neck in a regal, beautiful pattern.
This was not the cowering, defeated creature she had rescued in the bowels of Garana’s jail. This was a chief, a leader to his people.
Hazel turned her head and saw the room she was in was round, with a rounded ceiling. The golden veins spread everywhere, illuminating the room from all angles. There was little furniture, and what little there was seemed carved from the rock.
With a supreme effort, Hazel pushed herself into a sitting position. The blazing inferno raging under her skin had spread to her entire leg as she moved, but the pain was better than that all-encompassing darkness. As Khal helped her sit, his hands all over her, his concerned face etched with deep lines of worry, Hazel locked gazes with Yalko.
“Where are we?”
Yalko cast a glance around before looking back at her. “This is the Kerlu tribe’s home.” His yellow eyes went to the wall and his long, clawed hand came to rest on a large golden vein with what she could only qualify as reverence. “We are safe under the Mother Forest’s care.”
Hazel’s eyes widened as understanding dawned on her. “We are underneath the Medina Forest?” She looked with horror at the golden veins. “Those are the roots that wanted to eat us.”
Yalko’s eyes gleamed briefly as he took a step closer to her. “The Mother Forest protects and she feeds. She gives light and she heals.” He looked pointedly at her thigh. “It is only right that she consumes as well. All life on Muhar starts and ends in the Mother Forest.”
Yalko stopped speaking as the healer turned to them with a thick fold of a material that reminded Hazel of the green fabric the Muharee wrapped their bodies in, but this was pale, almost white.
